About 30 people gathered outside the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors offices on Monday, Sept. 27, to urge state and county officials to extend COVID-19-era tenant eviction protections.
The rally, organized by Keep Los Angeles Housed, and Right to Counsel, came a day ahead of the supervisors’ meeting, where they will consider extensions, which are set to expire on Sept. 30.
People holding signs chanted as they stood behind boxes with dioramas and slogans such as “Keep LA Housed” and “Extend Protections” painted on them.
“We are urging both Gov. (Gavin) Newsom and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to do everything in their power to extend the eviction protections,” said Community Power Collective’s Carla De Paz.
In a costume made of cooking foil, Isabel Tecum, dressed as Lady Justice, has struggled to pay her rent on her Watts apartment. The unemployed seamstress is worried about what might happen if the protections are left to expire.
People took turns at a megaphone telling stories of hardship and fears of losing their housing brought on by the pandemic.
“A lot of the folks in our organization are street vendors who were unable to vend,” De Paz said of some of the people attending the event. “Many of the tenets here are feeling the pressure, unemployment ran out, or they are undocumented,” she continued.
The group said they will be back on Tuesday when the Supervisors will vote on county extension to the eviction protections.
The county’s eviction protections go back to March of 2020, when as the pandemic raged across the region, the county adopted an eviction moratorium, which allowed for tenants to present an “affirmative defense” in court to stay in their homes despite a landlord’s effort to evict. The state would follow with its own protections. The state protections would ultimately preempt many county protections.
According to a county motion set to be heard at Tuesday’s meeting, the county is preempted through March 31, 2022, under the state’s new eviction statutes, from enacting new or amending existing protections for residential tenants related to nonpayment of rent due to COVID-19. But the county is able under the new state law to continue protecting commercial tenants from such evictions, and to continue residential protections not preempted by the state until January. Among them is expanding the ability for property owners — and/or their family members — to move in to their properties, when needed, potentially displacing a tenant who is already renting that space.
If approved, the expanded move-in exception would be allowed only under certain criteria. For instance, under the motion, a tenant or tenant’s household member who is 62 years of age or older may only be displaced by the property owner or propertyowner’s family member if the property owner or property owner’s family member is also 62 years of age or older.
In the motion, Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Hilda Solis say the continued impact of the pandemic justified the need to expand the protections where the county can under state law.
“While the State nonpayment of rent protections are scheduled to sunset on September 30th, 2021, it is prudent that the County continue to extend our local emergency tenant protections allowable under State law,” according to the motion. “By extending the COVID-19 tenant protections and expanding the owner move-in exception, the County can continue to protect the health, safety, and welfare of its constituents during the COVID19 pandemic, while recognizing the importance of allowing property owners to move into their properties, if needed.
The Board meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday. You can follow it live at http://bos.lacounty.gov/Board-Meeting/Live-Broadcast.
Staff writer Ryan Carter contributed to this story.